Teaching Hope Reflection

Teaching Hope has been a great read so far. For me, most of the stories are about things that I think will happen to me or I will do once I am a teacher. Three passages stood out to me. Passage number 3 was one of them. Mrs. Lancing is the type of teacher I feel that I will be in the future. She doesn't want to be a strict, no messing around teacher. She wants to connect on a personal level with each of her students and tell them about where she has come from and experiences she has had. That is part of the reason I am anxious to be a teacher myself. I am anxious to engage students in the curriculum, but also to teach them about life and help them with things that come up throughout their lives. Mrs. Lancing had a similar thought that I have had about getting on a personal level with students, and that is where to draw the line. There has to be a line that cannot be crossed. When the teacher gets too relaxed and the teacher/student line is blurred and becomes friend/friend or whatever the term one finds appropriate, the level of learning decreases I feel. Like Mrs. Lancing, I want to have a good relationship with all of my students, I need to keep in mind that it needs to be a professional one as well.

Passage number 6 was another one that I found very interesting. Having to deal with a student who comes from a poor home life is challenging. You don't want to be very strict and keep the child who obviously needs sleep, along with someone who understands him/her, but you don't want to just let the student feel like he/she can just fall asleep in class and not focus on what is being taught. Keeping up to date on popular and current teaching styles that help keep students engaged is something like the teacher in this passage I want to continue to do throughout my career. It does nothing but benefit the student by keeping them engaged, and helps give me more motivation to find new and innovative ways to teach effectively.

Passage 12 was the third passage that I found very intriguing, and hopefully its about a situation I will never be in. Planning curriculum and preparing to teach a class that I would end up not teaching would be very stressful to me and many of teachers. I have also heard the phrase "Don't smile until Christmas". This is something that I don't necessarily believe. A teacher can be strict and firm, but also have a laid back approach and fun teaching style. Students don't only need someone to teach them fundamentals of the subject of the class, they also need someone to help them understand the struggles of life.